Fixture changes to accomodate Amazon

[Mikus LFC]

The broadcasters have the fans over a barrel. They know they have what the fans want and that they’ll pay for it. But if a 4th or even 5th corporation came in to grab a slice of the pie, I do think fans, even the most tribal ones, would think that would really be starting to take the pee.

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[Nike19]

If there’s an acceptance and allowance of this trend, Managers who don’t have the luxury in being able to field a quality of extended players outside the First Team will feel the strain.

Cramming it all in. Barely 48 hours recovery so Amazon can give you a ‘cut’ of their revenue on ‘Live Games’.

I honestly don’t know anymore. It’s bad enough for many a year, a solution yet to be found in accommodating a Winter Break. We don’t seem to find an answer. Miserably, just one way traffic.

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[Luckydestiny]

Nil, I do understand your POV as far as fixture congestion goes, but if you look at it through the commercial side of things it is bound to find its limit. I say this because the more games teams have to play, the lower the quality of the games (or the “product” from a commercial POV) Look how this has played out in domestic cup competitions, most teams, especially those in europe cant compete on 3 or 4 fronts, so they prioritise and rotate for the comps they deem least important. This means that the quality of football in the league cup and FA cup is reducing and so commercially those competitions will fall further and further behind the league and European cups in terms of importance.

Maybe that will be the solution, not ideal but the domestic cups are likely to become more and more competitions for the second teams. Personally I would prefer scrapping the league cup, or at least omitting the clubs who are also in europe, I love the FA cup and think scrapping the league cup could be vital to rescuing the FA cups relevance and importance.

With regards the dates of fixtures moved for broadcasters, well I also wish the governing bodies would take a more rational and holistic view of things and consider how to maximise the quality of games through considerate scheduling, and I do agree that of course travel for fans should be taken into consideration, but as you and everyone else knows, its about the money. However, from a selfish POV, as someone who will be home on boxing day merry as can be, I will be grateful for the entertainment and to be honest I may renew my amazon subscription just for that month, mindlessly feeding the machine against which you rage 🙂

Catch up with you tomorrow for match day cyber chum.

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[Luckydestiny]

Pagan Sky took the gamble, every one else is jumping on the bandwagon so to be pedantic its not broadcasters plural its the broadcaster. The gamble paid off because of the fans in the first place though and the broadcasters (plural) and the Premier League are now taking advantage of just how fanatical we are, it will back fire and change will be forced upon them imo, mainly because of piracy.

Why am I willing to subscribe to sports channels when I can watch it for free? Well personally I prefer the quality of the official broadcasts and only really watch the games not shown on UK tv on illegal streams…but as the games are split between broadcasters and the cost of multiple subscriptions sore, more and more people will revert to pirate streams online and subscriptions will drop, then advertising revenue will drop.

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[Luckydestiny]

Pagan fair points re the fragmentation of tv rights too, when you look at the figures Nine posted for domestic TV rights income its no wonder the premier league splits its games in to packages as they do. 5.2 billion per year!

That means every month the combined UK broadcasters earn enough revenue from subscriptions and advertising that they can hand over 425 million to the premier league!

I would love the premier league to take complete ownership of it now we are in digital age though, Like a prem league direct subscription service with all games broadcast live for a monthly subscription. Problem is, even if you overestimate at 2m unique uk subscribers at £40/month that would only total 80m and unless it could generate over 345m per month in sponsorships and advertisments even 2m people paying 40/month would not make as much money as the current broadcasting set up.

Although I suppose the 425m/month the broadcasters hand over collectively each month is going to be considerably less than the total revenue generated through subscriptions and advertisments though, as the broadcaster has taken a cut. Its hard to tell without knowing exactly how much money can be made through the advert/sponsor side of things, but again hope in the future its all under one roof and at a reasonable cost. Maybe soon enough it will become more profitable for the Premier league to broadcast everything itself.

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[Anonymous]

Sky and BT call the tune Amazon has no influence over them or the sporting body.

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[nine nine nine]

Lucky, some great points made on this thread.

Personally I don’t like the fragmentation and Amazon entering the scene I’ve already had to spend out on BT as well as Sky primarily for the CL and I doubt I will do so again.

In terms of the scheduling as a season ticket holder at Chelsea I always wanted every Chelsea game to be a 3pm ko on a Saturday so I understand where Nil is coming from but as Pagan rightly says we fans want success and the Piper calls the tune.

I am sympathetic to what you say re the extra money the top 6 will earn because as you rightly say a football game requires two teams but equally the overseas fans won’t be contributing what they do to watch Sheffield United and Brighton for instance and those outside of the top six will still earn handsomely from it anyway but it does perpetuate the top 6 dominating football and we would all like to see a few more Leicester City’s but it’s not particularly revolutionary as League positions have always dominated how TV monies are shared.

But I can see both sides of the argument.

Personally I like the League Cup and wouldn’t like to see it devalued by the top 6 dropping out but if fixture congestion becomes too much that could be the first competition and imo only competition to fall by the way side for the top 6 but the top 6 have enormous squads if you include all the Academy players too and the League Cup is a great development stage in the early rounds for them.

Nil understandably raises the point about fixture congestion particularly in December but all sides will have to play lots of games in December and Chelsea too play 2 games within 48 hours of the Boxing Day fixtures which is unique to us in England and part of our football tradition although this season more fixtures are having to be crammed in because of the two week winter break in February.

Personally I don’t think fans of the top 6 can complain too much about TV scheduling though when it’s contributing up to £149m to Clubs and fans of those Clubs are clamouring for their Clubs to be more successful and sign this of that £50m to £100m player.

Liverpool do have a particular problem in December with fixtures because of the World Club Championship which they automatically gain entry to and have potentially two extra games from winning the Champions League but we would all swap places with Liverpool wouldn’t we!?

Good debate lads. Cheers 9’s

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[nine nine nine]

Anyway off to see some grass roots football this morning to watch our little one play. A VAR free zone.?

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[Pagan]

Lucky, yes piracy is a big problem, but the providers have that covered in the main, they’ll just up the cost of the data you need to stream the games. If they don’t cover their costs that way then they pull out and the money in our game will cease to come in, and we get left with a country of Burys…..Pagan

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[Pagan]

999, likewise I have grass roots footy this morning, followed by elite player pathway cricket this afternoon, so that’s 200 miles again today.

Enjoy the game 999….Pagan

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[sean the sailor]

I had virgin but just got sky in now so have bt, premier sports and sky sports

I will sign up for amazon aswell.

The fixture congestion is absolutely crazy but from a fans POV what a Christmas for football and live ganes.

Some teams play two games in 48 hours. Absolute maddness but great for the supporters

I’m
Delighted we are in the world championship. It’s another trophy which is recognised by Fifa. Lot of travelling etc but I’d love to win it

Love football at Christmas

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[Chucky McChuckface]

I love a good bit of Christmas footy, just like Waspy, but have no sympathy for the issues the schedule has created. Maybe it would be different if I was a match-day-goer in Blighty rather than an armchair warrior in Middle Earth, but as mentioned by many in this thread, footy sold its soul many, many years ago and its too late to put that genie back in the bottle. The problem of travelling away to games on public holidays on public transport is one that should be considered, but I’m pretty sure the away fans have the option of not going and I’m pretty the home teams would have no problem selling the extra tickets to home fans. Would have thought many of the visiting fans would be on “club coaches” anyway… maybe that’s the answer, all away fans over the festive period go on offical mini “club tours”…

Certainly don’t have any sympathy for the multi-millionaires kicking the pig-skin about, that’s for sure!! They all get to retire at 32, write pointless biographies and shag wags… 🙂

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[Adlab]

I have made this comment many, many times before. The EPL is big business. Its about money and little else. We support our teams til we die. However, the top teams are the richest teams. Yes you get the odd exception, Leicester.
In todays environment the money god is everything. The people within the EPL earn obscene amounts and we pay for it.
We have too many games over Xmas.

But what about the fans? The cost, the travel, the family disruption even to the extent of TV matches.

We play today at 5.30pm. I hate it. We like to sit down for dinner. City playing at the same time spoils the family togethef.

Why do we need to play at this time? More money to line the pockets of a few overpaid individuals.

Can the average supporter take his two kids to two matches in a week? If he does what else gives.

As strong as a City supporter ax you know I am and money at my time of life is, thankfully, not a major issue, I feel for those who want to go but cant because of cost and timings. All to make millionaires even richer from kicking a football.

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[Nike19]

Adlab, my biggest fury is those travelling supporters on a bank holiday effectively deprived of public transport.⚽️??

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[sean the sailor]

Ye Chucky and adlab, I’m looming at it from a selfish point of view as I don’t go to the games that often.

I’m just in my armchair watching the games.

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[Luckydestiny]

Nine, many fair points raised by yourself there mate, and agree that if we are happy for our cubs to receive the monies we cant complain too much about the schedules.

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[Luckydestiny]

Pagan, I dont expect Piracy to create the extreme circumstances you describe, however if legitimate subscribers and official viewing figures drop so will advertising revenue, since money is all that matters I would be hopeful this could be something keep the greed of the League and broadcasters in check. People will always prefer to pay for consistent quality and value when they can and the option of piracy hopefully will act as an incentive for Value for the consumer to be considered.

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[nine nine nine]

Pagan, I hope you enjoyed your grass roots football as much as I did. Brilliant game respectful supporters all behind the ropes it ended 5 all and our youngest scored two very good goals and is turning into a very decent striker. Hope the Cricket goes well. Cheers 9″s

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[nine nine nine]

Those watching pirate games are primarily watching them via the Cameras that Sky and BT supply.

As Sean says he’s anmchsir fan and living in Ireland it’s difficult for him to get to games so he’s prepared to pay for his Footie at home.

Think back to how it was before Sky etc you either got to a match on a Saturday or watched your team on a 5 minute clip on MOTD.

It’s not perfect now for all the reasons stated but it’s still a lot better than it ever was.

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[Luckydestiny]

Those watching pirate games are primarily watching them via the Cameras that Sky and BT supply.

That is correct nine, though usually a different commentary team as the streams are of broadcasts from foreign channels.

But what you are missing here, and sky and bt never acknowledge this either, is that most games watched via illegal streams are not actually broadcast in the uk any way. Its no loss to Sky or Bt when someone streams a game they are not showing but that is being shown by international broadcasters such as Bein sports and NBCSN.

I am lucky in that I get my BT subscription free (work perk) and subscribe to sky so the games broadcast here I watch legally. If I couldnt afford it I would watch online but the quality is poor and streams can be very unreliable causing you to miss good portions of games searching for a new link when one goes down. The point I am trying to make is that the league and broadcasters are now pushing it, and as it becomes more expensive to watch the legal streams people will revert to illegal streams. You rightly referred to two sides to these arguments, but why are we so eager to consider their side if they dont consider ours? Hopefully they will understand soon enough that we are more than willing to pay for these games, but please treat us with respect and offer us value for money, otherwise we wont buy at all.

I will be watching todays game through my firestick on a foreign channel, but thats only because there is no legal way to do it. Yes you can attend the game live but only room for 40000 and many more chelsea fans than that in this country. (and to be fair its not something I can justify from a financial POV considering the priorities for my family)

Glad you had a good time this morning mate and congrats to your grandson, fingers crossed for us this afternoon,

Take it easy Nine.

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